When I first walked into social justice at the vulnerable age of twelve I had multiple online personas telling me what I should and shouldn’t believe. This became the norm for about a year. I had dipped my feet into the waves of feminism, Black Lives Matter, and other movements.
Realizing everything now, the social media “SJWs” I interacted with were incredibly toxic, even as toxic as the extremists from the right. They presented multiple fronts including the beliefs that white women can’t be feminists, it’s okay to hate ALL men, and things some conservatives would brand as “the typical left”. On another side, into the deep dark depths of Black Lives Matter, I began seeing accounts who advocated racial distinctions and lynching white people.
It took me a while to realize that this is not the face of these movements as a whole. These are extremists and something I should distance myself from. The people behind these accounts held guises of purity and infallibility. Months later I ventured into libertarianism and discovered fallacies in multiple arguments and read actual accurate statistics. Obviously, I am more of a liberal democrat or independent now, but at some point in each part of my life, I fell to the propaganda distributed from multiple sides.
These experiences led me to many valuable questions, such as “How much harm does propaganda from social media cause?” I realized the cases can be extreme. In fact, it doesn’t just cloud the mind of a mislead prepubescent girl, it can also allow for hate to breed and makes terrorism easier by spreading misinformation and speeding up the recruitment process.
Although it may seem hopeless, there are ways to combat the sometimes everlasting effects that social media imposes. Spread reliable information on any platform you have whether it’s the social justice giant, Twitter, or Instagram and Facebook. Create a blog to educate the masses and spread valuable statistics. If you can’t use social media because of limited access to the internet, then make posters around campus or educate your family. Every little effort to crush negative propaganda helps.
Photo from https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-smart-phone-248533/
